


Someone in the World Looking After Him

by GenesisHardy



Category: Nancy Drew (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Game 27: The Deadly Device, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22108423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenesisHardy/pseuds/GenesisHardy
Summary: Niko had always been a loner. People had drifted into and out of his life for as long as he could remember. But something was different about Ryan. A short one shot about Niko and Ryan and what could have been.
Relationships: Niko Jovic/Ryan Kilpatrick





	Someone in the World Looking After Him

**Author's Note:**

> I always thought there was something between Niko and Ryan, even if it isn't explicitly said. I wrote this a while ago, and might edit it again eventually.  
> All the references and characters belong to HerInteractive and their Nancy Drew games. I don't own anything.

The lab was not big. It was not welcoming, or comfortable, or warm, but for Niko, it was home. He didn’t mind that everything in the lab was various shades of grey and cold underneath his already always-cold hands. He didn’t mind that his twelve hour work days were often spent alone with only the dull electrical hum of various machines in the background to keep him company. Niko was comfortable when he was surrounded by his machines and electricity swirled around him, much like the scientist he was named after.  
It was rare for Grey to enter the lab, and Mason almost never left the glow of his computer screen. Niko would see Ellie every once in a while when his shift was ending and her’s was just beginning, and Victor almost never entered the lab, or even the building itself. Niko didn’t mind, though. Even if anyone had entered the lab, Niko doubted he would have acknowledged them. He existed only with the electricity, and rather than force himself into uncomfortable situations with the other employees, he stayed focused on the energy emanating from the large coil that loomed above him each day.  
She didn’t enter the lab at all during her first two weeks at Technology of Tomorrow Today. Niko knew she was upstairs, working over her motorcycle while he worked over the coil, but, just like all the others, she was only a name: Ryan. These first two weeks came and went, and until the lock on the control room door broke, Niko was comfortable existing on a separate frequency than the engineer.  
She said it was not a serious problem. She said it would only take her a few minutes to fix the lock, that she’d be out of his lab in a half hour and that he’d never even know she’d been in there. She worked over the lock as he worked over the coil, and in half an hour, she was done and the door had been tested and she grabbed her toolbox. As she pulled the door open, Niko looked up from the coil. Thank you, he said, and she smiled at him before walking out of the lab, leaving him stranded in his sea of grey machinery.   
The next time they talked, the coil needed a new part. She entered his lab once again, made the measurements, installed the part, and left. Thank you, he said again. You’re welcome, she replied before opening the door and once again leaving his lab, her red hair bouncing behind her.   
They began to talk often, and soon Niko found himself leaving behind his cold, grey lab for her warm, bright shop. She told him about her plans for her bike, and he told her about his plans for his coil, and both could see the final designs taking shape. She understood his hypotheses and he understood her blueprints and for a moment, both were plugged into a unique current: shared, and yet hidden from the rest of the world.   
Then he was asking for a new piece for his coil, a piece she knew might kill him. She tried to warn him, but he could only retreat back to the frequency he had always known. You just can’t see the finished blueprint, he said. You just can’t fully visualize my work. Then she went into her shop, and he went into his lab. Night fell, and she stood outside the door to his lab for a moment, but she couldn’t find any words, so she left and drove to her awards ceremony.   
It was 4:00 AM on a cold October morning when Ryan was called into the police station. Sleep still clung to her eyes and her hair and her green sweatshirt hung limply over her slightly bent shoulders. They showed her images, bags filled with evidence. They questioned her all night, one question after another, rapid fire, hoping she would crack under the pressure, get caught in a lie, break down and admit that yes, she had done it.   
Her shop seemed empty the next day, everything cold and shadowed in various shades of grey. She stood outside the lab again, trying to convince herself to go in.  
The coil was dark, the machinery cold and quiet. Not even the dull hum that had invaded the lab for so long could be heard. Ryan sat down on the grey floor, next to his coil. She stared at his work, looking for a flaw in his system, unraveling his hypotheses, imagining his final blueprints and everything he could have achieved for the world.   
She was alone again, left on her own frequency and tangled in her own thoughts. The lab was empty, the floor cold, the machines quiet. And she cried.


End file.
